


so just know that i'll expect it if you ever do leave

by simmonns



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (fitzsimmons is implied), F/M, Fluff, Post-Finale, a little bit of angst, jealous!simmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:59:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simmonns/pseuds/simmonns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>based on this prompt i got on tumblr: "uh, what about Fitzsimmons get an intern, and she's a girl super fun and knows a lot about engineering, and Fitz and her bond over that, and Simmons get jealous of her. Hahaha idk, I dreamed something like that the other day and i thought it would be nice if someone write something like that." [post-finale angsty fluff]</p>
            </blockquote>





	so just know that i'll expect it if you ever do leave

**Author's Note:**

> i don't have an established universe for post-finale, so the things i post on here aren't related to each other (namely, this one doesn't come after the piece i have called "and the world spins madly on". it's a different universe)

 “You got an  _intern_?” Skye was leaning over the counter as she spoke, coffee mug in hand, her brown hair falling over one shoulder in messy waves.

            “Mm.” Jemma nodded in lieu of reply as she was in the middle of a sip of tea from her own mug. After she set the ceramic mug down on the counter with a  _clink,_  she elaborated, “Her name’s Maia. Have you not seen her around? She’s been here for almost three weeks, Skye,  _really_.”

 

            Her friend shrugged. “Nope, sorry. I guess I’ve just been really busy.”

            Jemma sympathized with that. It had been almost two months since she and Fitz escaped the pod and Ward was captured, and it seemed like they’d been doing twice as much as before ever since. She certainly had been for the first month, when Fitz had been temporarily comatose and then too weak to leave bed, but now it felt like things were finally returning to normal. Or, at least, as normal as they could get with a third person coming into the lab.

            “So… An intern.” Skye repeated, half to herself, as she swirled the foamy contents of her cup around in a circle. She looked up at Jemma again. “How does that even work? You guys are  _Fitzsimmons._  There’s no room for a third person.”

            “Oh, quiet, Skye,” Jemma rolled her eyes. “We have too much work for two people, anyways. And besides,  _Fitz_  is the one who spends the most time with her.” Jemma let the sentence hang in the air for a second, before she cleared her throat and added, “I mean, because she’s an engineering student.” She frowned slightly, taking a sip of her tea as an excuse to break eye contact with Skye.

            “Woah, Simmons! What was that?” Skye set down her coffee mug and gaped across the counter at her.

            “What was what?”

            “Was that  _jealousy_?” Skye asked, sounding appalled.

            “Jealousy?” Jemma scoffed. “Fitz needs the help! Who am I to deny him that?”

            “Mm-hmm,” the other agent replied slowly, but Jemma could tell from her tone that she didn’t believe her. “So, is she pretty?”

“Maia? I suppose.” Jemma shrugged and took another sip of tea, wrinkling her nose at its lukewarm temperature. “Why?”

            “Come on, Simmons.” Skye shook her head. “Just admit you miss having Fitz all to yourself. You have that weird connection going. Doesn’t it worry you that another girl, another  _pretty_ girl, might throw off your mojo, or whatever?”

            Jemma snorted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

            “Sure you don’t.” Skye finished the rest of her coffee and left the kitchen, and Jemma poured the remainder of her tea down the sink, finding it had grown too cold for her taste. Besides, she needed to go ahead and get to the lab. Fitz and Maia were probably waiting on her.

            Fitz was the first to greet her when she walked through the glass sliding doors. He glanced up from the little metal contraption buzzing between his fingers, a smile lighting his face. “Mornin’, Simmons!” He called across the small room, raising an elbow in lieu of a wave, as both of his hands were occupied with the gadget he was working on.

            Maia, sitting a few feet away from Fitz, followed suit. “Good morning, Dr. Simmons!” She chirped, though this was quickly followed by a cry of dismay, for she had raised her hand to wave and the boxlike metal thing she had been focused on—identical to Fitz’s—had whirred to life and sprung off the table as soon as she was no longer holding it down.

            Jemma laughed as she watched the other girl dive after the robot, which had hit a window and was scurrying up it with apparent ease. Maia was a nice addition to their team so far; she was American, with curly auburn hair that fell over her shoulders and a thick band of freckles spattered across her cheeks and nose. Of course, Jemma didn’t spend as much time with her as Fitz did—Maia was an engineering student, someone Fitz had convinced Coulson to let him hire.

His reasoning had been that, though he was mostly recovered from the effects of nearly suffocating beneath the ocean’s surface, some of his motor skills and abilities were impaired enough that he needed another set of eyes to check over everything he did and make sure he didn’t make any critical errors. It was a sound argument, and Maia was sweet enough, but for some reason Jemma felt a twinge in the pit of her stomach whenever she was around.

Skye’s voice wormed her way into her mind, singing  _‘Jealous!’_  over and over again, but she pushed the thought down. Maybe she was just slow to trust after everything Ward had done to her and Fitz, but it felt different than that. Bitter, almost, in a way that twisted her gut more than betrayal did.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a yell from Fitz, who had let go his own metal contraption and was cheering as it careened around the lab, leaping off every surface in pursuit of Maia’s smaller robot. Both engineers were extremely excited by whatever game this was, Maia pointing as hers hit Fitz’s midair and was flung straight up into the ceiling and Fitz noting something about the angle of impact that Jemma didn’t understand. She suddenly felt left out, standing at the edge of the room and watching her best friend getting on so easily with someone he’d only known a few weeks. She shook it off quickly, though, because Jemma Simmons wasn’t the jealous type. She was just happy Maia fit into the team.

Still, something about watching two people who weren’t her and Fitz having fun in the lab was a little weird. In an attempt to settle the funny feeling in her stomach, she stepped forward and asked, “So what are you guys doing?”

 “Hold up one second! I need to see this.” Fitz held up a hand, both eyes trained on the two gadgets that were now stuck together halfway up the wall, tiny metallic legs pummeling madly against each other. Jemma watched bemusedly, entirely unsure of what was going on, while Maia whooped in victory as Fitz’s robot was flung away from hers and clattered to the floor.

“I won!” She cheered, reaching up on her tiptoes to pluck the contraption off the wall and waving it in front of Fitz’s face. “That’s three for me and two for you! Suck it, Leo!”

_Leo_. Jemma winced, not used to hearing anyone besides her use Fitz’s first name. She hadn’t been aware anyone else even did, but Fitz was apparently all right with it. He gave Maia a high five and ran a hand through his hair as he went to pick up his defeated creation. Jemma was still hovering near the doors, suddenly feeling unwelcome in her own lab. She crossed her arms across her stomach and rocked nervously on the balls of her feet, waiting for someone to acknowledge her.

Fitz finally did. “Jemma!” He exclaimed, a moment later, the disassembled remains of his robot already spread out across the counter in front of him. “What’re you doing over there? Come check this out!”

Unable to shake the feeling he was only showing her to be nice, Jemma crossed the room slowly and leaned over the counter, managing a nod of approval at the intricate, tiny metal parts, even though she had no idea what most of them did. “What did you build it for?” She asked, tilting her head to the side and trying to figure out what use something like this would have.

“Competition, of course,” Fitz replied easily, fiddling with a tiny joint on one of the spiderlike legs detached from the main body. “Maia thought she was a better engineer than me. It was a debate that needed to be settled.”

            It was the exact kind of thing she and Fitz would have been doing, just a few months ago. Before Ward and HYDRA, before all the things that happened at the bottom of the ocean, before…

            She didn’t even know if he remembered exactly what had happened down there. She hadn’t asked, because if she brought it up and his memories were still intact, what then? They would be forced to have a conversation about something she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Things had already changed enough between them without something like that, and she didn’t want them to change any more.

            She cleared her throat, nudging a tiny gear with her fingertip. “So what do they do?”

            Out of nowhere, Maia slid in from the side, and both she and Fitz simultaneously launched into an explanation of the tiny robots, half of which Jemma couldn’t understand because they were talking over each other.  _Is this what Fitz and I sound like when we do that?_  She wondered to herself. Despite suddenly understanding—and empathizing with—people’s irritation when she and Fitz talked at the same time, she suddenly found herself feeling upset and a little sick.

            Suddenly, Fitz said something that set Maia off. Whatever it was had gone completely over Jemma’s head (something that didn’t happen often), but the intern collapsed into a fit of laughter, putting both hands on the counter to support herself and eventually falling sideways into Fitz, who had also started laughing. He wasn’t prepared for her weight against his, and so both collapsed to the ground, vanishing from Jemma’s sight. She could still hear them laughing hysterically, and now she felt like she was going to be sick. That explained a lot. She must have picked something up last time they’d been on the ground, some stomach virus or flu or something. She wasn’t jealous, just ill. Of course that was it, why would she be jealous of Maia? That just didn’t make sense.

            After almost a full minute, Maia and Fitz heaved themselves back up by the counter, breathing heavily, Maia still giggling a little bit. “Sorry ‘bout that, Simmons,” Fitz apologized. “We should probably get started for the day, right?”

            Jemma cleared her throat. “Actually, I think I’m coming down ill,” She confessed, curling her arms around herself and taking a step back. “Just… Came in to tell you I think I’m going to take a sick day.”

            “I hope you feel better!” Maia told her, sympathy glimmering in her eyes. “Sick is no fun.” She dropped her gaze back down to her own disassembled robot after that, and Jemma met Fitz’s eyes for a moment. He looked like he was going to say something, but she pursed her lips, gave a little nod and turned to leave, the doors sliding shut with a soft thump behind her.

            She didn’t feel like getting any medicine, considering she didn’t even know what was wrong with her, so instead she opted to just go take a nap and hope that it helped. She slid the door of her bunk closed behind her and collapsed on the bed, kicking her shoes off and falling against the mattress. The churning feeling in her stomach still wasn’t going away, so she stared at the wall and curled up into a ball to see if it would help alleviate the pain. It didn’t.

            Jemma’s mind drifted back to the lab, and she wondered what Fitz and Maia were going to spend the day doing now that she wasn’t there. Probably fighting their mini robots again or something like laughing over a joke or goofing around or doing something else ridiculously fun that she wouldn’t get because  _they_ were engineering and she was just biochem.

            She lay like that in silence for a few minutes, trying to stop thinking about them and finding she could do no such thing, and that was when someone else came in through the door of her bunk and closed it and sat down on the edge of her bed.

            “Hey, Jemma.” It was Fitz.

            “Hi, Fitz.” She replied without turning to face him.

            “Are you all right?” He asked; moments later, she felt his hand land on her shoulder and reach up to brush a few strands of her hair away from her face. She closed her eyes and let out a soft sigh, enjoying the familiar touch of his fingers for a second.

            “I’m fine,” She managed. “Just ill, I think.”

            Fitz was quiet for a moment, and his hand pulled away from her. Finally, he softly said, “I know you better than that, Jemma.”

            “No really, Fitz, I think I’m coming down with something,” she told him firmly. “Some awful stomach thing, I don’t know, and it’s fine I’ll be okay in a few days, you and  _Maia_  can just—“

            “I remember what happened at the bottom of the ocean,” He broke in suddenly, and in her shock Jemma fell silent. “I remember exactly what happened. I don’t know if you knew that.”

            She should have known he knew her well enough to see exactly what was on her mind. Jemma finally sat up and turned to face him—Fitz was sitting at the edge of her bed, staring down at his hands, which were laying in his lap. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say, because this was the exact conversation she didn’t want to have and here it was, unfolding before her very eyes. “Fitz…”

            “No, Jemma, I want to talk about this.” He raised his eyes to hers, bright blue meeting soft brown. “Okay? And I can’t pretend this hasn’t been affecting me ever since I woke up.”

            She was the first one to break eye contact. “Me, neither,” She admitted, dropping her gaze to the mattress. “I’m so sorry, Fitz, that I didn’t… I didn’t know what to say.” Just thinking about those few hours when she’d thought she was going to die made her chest tighten and tears start to prick at the corner of her eyes.

            “Just thought you should know that I meant it. I mean, maybe I wouldn’t’ve said anything if I hadn’t thought I was about to die, but I meant it.”

            “I really didn’t know what to say back, Fitz, I would have but I didn’t know,” Jemma was almost babbling now, tears starting to spill over onto her cheeks. “You just mean so much to me, Fitz, and I didn’t know what I would do without you and—“ She had to stop to cover her face with her hands, immediately drawing an exclamation from Fitz.

            “Holy shit Jemma, I didn’t mean to make you cry, oh my god.” The mattress creaked as he crawled over to her and she felt his arms wrap around her and pull her against his chest. She curled her arms around his waist and buried her face in his shirt, suddenly sobbing uncontrollably. His hand came up and slowly stroked her hair, something she found to be immensely calming. “We don’t have to talk about this. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

            “No, no, no, it’s… it’s okay,” She gasped out between sobs. “I j-just… I didn’t want to because I thought it changed stuff. You got Maia, and now you spend more time with her than with me, a-and…”

            “Hold on, Jemma.” She felt his hands slip to her shoulders and pull her away from him so he could look her in the eyes. “I got Maia  _because_ of what happened. I thought if there was someone else, we could avoid all the stuff that happened and just go back to the way things were. But I messed up, okay? And this is her last week, anyways.”

            Jemma blinked. “What do you mean?”

            “I’m mostly recovered. I don’t need someone extra anymore. She was just temporary help. You and me, we’re a team. No one in the world is ever going to be more important to me than you are.”

            It would have been impossible for Jemma not to feel as suddenly heavy with affection for him as she did right then. She lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug, and then mumbled into his shoulder, “I love you, Leo. Is it okay that I don’t know exactly how?”

            He engulfed her in another hug and rested his chin on top of her head. “It’s okay, Jemma. I love you, too.”


End file.
